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When it comes to oil, olive is considered the gold standard. But while olive groves may not thrive in Canadian climates, canola plants sure do. And about 20 minutes south of Calgary, on his Highwood Crossing farm, Tony Marshall produces an oil some consider just as delectable: organic Canadian cold-pressed canola.

"It's raw, it's fantastic. You would never think of canola oil like this," says Rémi Cousyn, chef and owner of Calories Bakery & Restaurant in Saskatoon, who is devoted to preparing only foods that are grown and raised nearby.

The product is so unlike the canola oil sold in large jugs at the grocery store it's hard to believe they both come from the same plant, he says. Mr. Cousyn uses the oil in salad dressing, adds it to soups and drizzles it on the plate for decoration.

The liquid is bright yellow; its golden hue conjures up sunshine and dandelions, and its flavour is both nutty and grassy.

Mr. Marshall first experimented 16 years ago, inspired by traditional oil pressing he'd just seen on a trip to Germany. He bought a press and turned some of the organic canola he grew in Aldersyde, Alta., where his family has farmed for more than 100 years, into the amber liquid.

What he produced bore no resemblance to mainstream canola oil. Canola is a hybridized rapeseed created by plant breeders in the 1970s, which yields an oil low in saturated fats, popular in households and the food industry. (Canola is short for Canada Oil, Low Acid.) To extract as much oil from the seed as possible, canola is typically processed in factories using high heat and solvents.

Mr. Marshall takes a different approach. He doesn't heat the canola and uses only a reciprocating screw press, an old-style machine that looks like a sausage-maker.

"We treat it like a high-end culinary oil," he says.

Only a few producers are making this culinary canola, but they say demand keeps growing. "Now it's more popular than ever before," says Sophie Larin, marketing manager for La Maison Orphée, a Quebec-based company that makes the oil. For the last few years, she says their sales have risen every 12 months, which she credits to consumers' increasing desire to know where their food comes from - and the fact that chefs have started using it, too.

Jamie Kennedy, who owns several restaurants and cafés in Toronto, has included cold-pressed canola oil on his menus. So has chef/owner Chris Aerni of the Rossmount Inn in St. Andrews by-the-Sea, N.B. He emphasizes local ingredients and infuses Highland Crossing oil with flavours like arugula and chive, saying he appreciates it for its Canadian-ness: "It's the other piece in the mosaic making up Canadian food culture to have a very fine local oil."

Special to The Globe and Mail

Editor's note: Incorrect information appeared in the original version of this article. This version has been corrected.